


The Gray Book

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 19:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17710130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "So, if someone doesn’t believe in a spirit, that means that they can’t see that spirit, as evidenced by Jack Frost, correct?What if that applies to inter-spirit relations as well?The “big four” can see other spirits & be seen by them because they’re ~the big four~/they’re guardians, and everyone can see the Boogieman because he’s the friggen boogieman, but other spirits aren’t necessarily seen.For example, maybe Jack can’t see the spirit of the wind, because he doesn't believe in the wind, though he acknowledges it, or maybe he’s never seen the groundhog, because he never believed in the groundhog, and vice versa!tl;dr except for the big four+Pitch, spirits need to believe in each other to see each other, something Jack finds out when the other Guardians start introducing him to the other spirits."There’s a gray book full of names in Toothiana’s shining palace, Jack reads it and learns about something else that the Guardians do.





	The Gray Book

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 1/17/2014.

Toothiana has charge of the book, though it looks out of place amid the bright enamel and shining gold of her palace: a gray rectangle an arm’s length in height, and a handspan thick. When Jack first sees it, he is struck by two immediate impressions. One, that this book is as solid a cornerstone for anything as he will ever see. Two, that it is made of nothing but dust and lint and a puff of his breath could send it flying in fragments out the latticed windows.  
  
They can’t both be true, so he asks. “What’s it made of?”  
  
Tooth lets her hand hover just over the cover, and Jack wonders also why she seems reluctant to touch it, though this he does not ask. The Guardians have become perfectly candid with him since he joined, and he’s not sure he wants or could comprehend her answer right now.   
  
“It’s not made of anything,” Tooth answers. “But nevertheless it exists, and  _must_  exist. That’s why I’m the one responsible for it. I know how to curate such things.”  
  
“And…before? Who kept it then?”  
  
“That’s in the book.” She flies over to Jack and places a hand on his forearm. “Would you like me to stay here while you read it?” She looks around the spacious chamber. “You might be surprised by some of the things that happen as you read.”  
  
“Dangerous things?”  
  
She shakes her head. “Not to you, as you are now.”  
  
Even though he knows the answer’s true, it doesn’t reassure him. “I’d like you to stay.” Tooth nods and moves back a little so his path to the book is unobscured.  
  
Even under his hands the book remains both monumental and insubstantial. When he blinks, Jack realizes that the only way he knows he’s even holding anything is because he can see himself doing so. The cover has no texture, no weight. It would be impossible to move save for the way that it is already always moving.   
  
The first page holds hundreds of lines of tiny, dense text. Whatever ink’s been used to write it stands out from the gray of the page with preternatural sharpness that hits Jack like lightning. He reads the first words aloud, confused. “Jack Frost. E. Aster Bunnymund. Nicholas St. North. Toothiana. Sanderson Mansnoozie. Pitch Black. Tooth, what…I don’t understand.”  
  
“It’s just a precaution, Jack.” She looks over his shoulder. “So their names are separated now. I’m surprised that’s the order they ended up in…” She blinks a few times. “The book begins this way because it helps with the reading of the rest of it.” She pauses. “Do you want to know more?”  
  
“No, I’ll…keep going.” Jack returns his attention to the book. He doesn’t read aloud now, but each word resounds in his mind as clearly as if someone had spoken it in his ear.   
  
Of course, “word” is a bit too general to describe what he’s reading. Everything in the book is a  _name_. A few he recognizes. Most he doesn’t.   
  
How long he reads for, he doesn’t know. He reads the whole book without stopping, and each page is just as densely printed as the first, and despite the volume’s thickness, the pages are as thin and delicate as the year’s first frost. When he’s finished, nothing yet has come of Toothiana’s warning of surprises.  
  
But when he looks up, he gasps. Dozens upon dozens of beings fill the chamber of the book now, and Jack reaches a hand out to Toothiana’s arm to steady himself as he stares around at them all.  
  
They are horned and hooved, winged and scaled, vast and miniscule, earthy and airy. Most of them have a touch of the human in their appearance, but not all, and for most it is only a touch. None of them are familiar to Jack. “There’s more of them than I expected,” Tooth says, smiling at Jack. “More than there were the last time someone new read from the book.”  
  
“Who are they?” Jack whispers.  
  
“They’re going to introduce themselves to you soon enough. Try not to be nervous. They’ll be glad to meet you. For most of them, you’re their first new believer in quite some time.”  
  
Jack looks out through the crowd again, finding it difficult to make his eyes settle on anything. A wooden fang. Hair made of water. Stone claws. Cloud eyes.  
  
“All those names, then…real?”  
  
Tooth nods. “But most of them forgotten. Even the best human memory doesn’t last. But ours do. That’s why we keep all their names, and in so doing, keep them.”  
  
“But so many…how…”  
  
A panting laugh interrupts Jack, and he turns to face someone who appears much like a wolf, but feels not like a wolf at all. “Doesn’t take much, for us, not from the likes of you,” they say. “Spare us a thought or two every century, it’ll keep us going. We’d prefer not to need belief at all, you know, but it turns out that’s how we started and if we didn’t have it we’d stop. And not Sandy nor Pitch will bend those modern minds so we could rely on them instead.  
  
“They say they can’t. Never seen that they can, so they might be telling the truth, but,” the panting laugh again. “Well, after 80,000 years there might indeed be a few too many of us for that. But you can handle seeing all of us now, can’t you, Jack Frost?”  
  
Jack nods, somewhat warily.  
  
“Good!” The being grins at him with fangs white as the sun. “Helps us see each other, you know. That’s what we’re more concerned with. But that’s not to say we’ll stay out of your way. You’ll see us around. There’re more of us than you remember reading.” They bob their head toward him and disappear into the crowd.  
  
“Eighty thousand years,” Jack says, and Tooth laughs softly.  
  
“They weren’t  _that_  old,” she says. “They were only from the domestication of the dog. Anyway, it doesn’t bother you interacting with Sandy, does it? And you’re not intimidated by Pitch. Now, come on. You’ve got a lot of people to meet, and time’s passing again now.” She glances over her shoulder at a parchment-skinned figure speaking with one all diamond-clear ice with bones of stone. “For all of us.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> #I can't wait for that American Gods crossover prompt #can you tell?
> 
> zinfandelli said: JESUS FRICKITY FRACKLING FUCK THIS IS AMAZING. THE WHOLE IDEA AND CONCEPT AND OH MY GOD JACK BBY YOU WERE ONLY ALONE BECAUSE YOU HAD /NO/ IDEA
> 
> marypsue said: And suddenly I can’t wait for the American Gods crossover either.


End file.
